Angel Dillard, a 44-year old woman from Valley Center, Kansas, was also slapped with a FACE charge by the Justice Department after she sent a very strongly worded letter to a Wichita doctor who was planning to start performing abortions at her clinic. Dillard’s letter was perhaps overzealous and starkly outlined the problems the doctor would encounter in the community, but Dillard said that she would pray that the doctor would make “the right choice” so that God would not bring judgment on her. The district court judge determined that Dillard was presenting a “religious argument” and that her statements were insufficient “to create any belief by a reasonable recipient that the writer was threatening violence.”

Kansas District Judge J. Thomas Marten refused to issue an injunction against Dillard, pointing out that to prove a violation of the FACE Act, the government would at least have to prove that Dillard’s letter could be reasonably understood as a “serious expression of an intent to commit an act” of violence against the doctor. With “no direct evidence” of any real plot by Ms. Dillard, suspicions against her remained “purely speculative.”

Judge Marten reminded the government of the foundational importance of free speech: “the First Amendment is the absolute bedrock of this country’s freedom and I think the ability to express an opinion on a topic that is important to one – even if it is controversial – has to be protected.” The DOJ responded that it was “obviously disappointed” with this idea. The Civil Rights Division does not seem to think that the First Amendment applies to those who speak out against abortion.

The FACE Act is intended to prevent violence. But even the National Abortion Federation acknowledges that the law doesn’t override protestors’ right to free expression, whether they are pro-life or pro-abortion. Both Ms. Dillard and Ms. Pine were prosecuted for exercising their First Amendment right when an ideologically-driven Justice Department wrongly prosecuted them under federal law.

The worst of it is that these are not isolated cases. The Division is pursuing another FACE Act prosecution of Richard Retta, a 79-year-old grandfather, for merely talking to women outside of an abortion clinic in the District of Columbia. That case is just as legally indefensible.

Unsurprisingly, the same DOJ enforcers are behind all three cases; Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas E. Perez and the Deputy Chief for the hyper-politicized Special Litigation Section Julie K. Abbate, are both among the attorneys spearheading litigation against Pine, Dillard, and Retta.

The only violence being done in these cases is to the rule of law, the First Amendment, and the right of the people to be free from an abusive and out-of-control Justice Department. Peaceful protesters shouldn’t be victimized by lawyers who use their power to impose their misguided ideology on an unsuspecting nation.

Hans von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a former lawyer in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. Travis LaCouter is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.

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1.
Fail Burton

Our Federal gov’t has become a smothering ideological blanket with far more interest in our minds than our infrastructure and law enforcement which is where gov’t should be concentrated.

Capital is being regulated to death where it least needs it and being allowed to rob America wholesale where it most needs to be stopped. Instead of bailing out banks they should’ve been prosecuted for fraud.

We are killing the goose that laid the golden egg by over regulation and by importing hordes of people from failed Third World nations. I’m not a psychologist but it’s hard to avoid the speculation that some kind of massive guilt trip is in play wherein America the Great is being offered up for sacrifice to the “traditionally oppressed” as the “traditionally oppressed” might put it.

Most of us, myself included, have taken so much for granted as Americans. Especially, those freedoms and liberties that were endowed to us by birthright.

I thought I might live to see the day where the most basic of freedoms, prohibiting the free exercise of religion or the right of the people to peaceably to assemble would be challenged upon in some manner. There’s been an acceptance of First Amendment infringement in some circles, but I always believed them the lunatic “fringe.” Or so I thought.

But I never thought I might live to see the day, First Amendment infringement would be so arrogantly and openly facilitated direct from the offices of the Justice Department, sitting President and members of his cabinet; what’s more, willingly accepted as lawful and necessary by so many dupes.

You get older, it becomes a little clearer how human atrocities have been committed under the guise of some national conscience.

“An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; for example orchestra can be rearranged into carthorse.” “Jail Babe” doesn’t come close.

“The Division is pursuing another FACE Act prosecution of Richard Retta, a 79-year-old grandfather, for merely talking to women outside of an abortion clinic in the District of Columbia. That case is just as legally indefensible.”

Where is the ACLU in defending all of these people? Where are THEY in defending these people’s right to free speech and freedom to protest in front of these clinics? Seems that if these were liberals fighting for a liberal cause, the ACLU would be there in a heartbeat. But since it involves people who are against something they believe in, the ACLU evidently wants no part of them. Fighting this law should be take all the way to the Supreme Court, and the ACLU should be the ones to do it. If not, they are just another bunch of left-wing hypocrites who don’t care anything about the law, only about their own agenda.

The next time I see a group of Franciscan Monks, in white habits, harassing a poor, hispanic couple about to enter a health clinic in mid-town Manhattan, I’m going to the nearest 7-11, buying two large Big Gulps of Cherry Red/Grape Juice, and as I walk by I will “accidently” splash it all over their smocks (butter fingers, me!). They will then look like the dirty, slovenly bums that they really are and will be promptly arrested by nearby police for harrassing people. Their “pure, white” smocks will no longer be a defense.

I’m 100% supportive of O’bwana’s foreign policy. The quicker Iran gets a nuke, the sooner we can enjoy watching tape of the glowing crater that used to be NYC.
NYC is not only not-America; New York City is the anti-America.

Yes, those monks doing the best they can to live good lives and do the right thing, and that poor Hispanic couple, doing the best they can do, and you in your arrogant self-righteousness, knowing who the good guys are, will get a real kick out of spilling something on them. Know what, they’ll probably pray for you after, while you giggle about your victory. Or try to raise bail.

Anti-abortionist have shown themselves to be prone to violence (ref. George Tiller and other murders and casualties of pro-choice advocates). DOJ is probably just trying to prevent this kind of violence. Besides, this article probably doesn’t tell the whole story.

I will not condone violence of any kind. However, you can not mention the violence of a few anti-abortions (I was tempted to switch from the biased term “anti-abortionist”, but then we might as well reserve “pro-lifer” for total non-violent activism.) without mentioning the overwhelming violence perpetrated on living fetuses. (Again, I will stick with a pro-abortion term “fetus”, since even stated such the conscience should be pricked.)

So incredibly and intellectually dishonest, it hardly worthy of response, but so vulgar and misleading, I must.

Six nuts that I can think of offhand and prone to violence would constitute a blanket statement of “anti-abortionist have shown themselves prone to violence.”

Does the name Paul Hill ring any bells? Some of those same anti-abortionist jurors sent him to his execution for murdering an abortion doctor, unless you can convince me the court stacked with Planned Parenthood and NARAL employees.

I wonder if in your skewed view, the scalding, scrapping, dismembering, or scissoring of 50,000,000 unborn in anyway might be considered “violence?” I guess if something is legal, it can’t be defined as violent. Right?

I should also add, there has been a great deal of violence perpetrated by pro-deathers against pro-lifers, including the pushing and shoving of peaceful pro-life demonstrators by pro-death activists, in attempts to provoke a defensive reaction which would then be portrayed as violence initiated by the pro-lifers. Not to mention the MAIMING of peaceful pro-life demonstrators by law enforcement.

Pushing & shoving? So, Mark. Maybe you can provide some actual facts to back up your statements? As for “peaceful sidewalk counseling,” I’ve watched women in the past being escorted in the past & trying to enter Planned Parenthood in Denver. It ain’t peaceful and it ain’t counseling either.

Let me guess: you know a whole lot about George Tiller’s death but nothing about James Pouillon’s, just as you know all sorts of things about Matthew Shepard’s death but nothing about Jesse Dirkhising’s.

That’s baloney. The guy who gunned down Pouillon also killed someone else the same day, that was unrelated to the Pouillon killing. The killer was questionably sane at the time of the murders. Some anti-abortion groups consider Pouillon a “martyr.” However, Pouillon’s own son attributed his father’s activism to a “pathological hatred of women.”

quoting the original artical, “pro-life or pro-abortion” shows the author’s bias. I am pro-CHOICE, not pro-abortion. Being fair minded does not seem to be in the author’s anti-choice wordsmithing. Some of what the pro-lifers do is free speech protected, some is rude, some mean, and some is threatening. More than a bit of it is so aggressive it is a violation of law. Abortion is a matter of choice, don’t want an abortion, don’t get one. Leave other people alone.

This item stands on its own as a solid, valuable piece of legal journalistic research but also it lends support to the value of the von Spakovsky-Adams work on Every Single One being submitted for a Pulitzer Prize. The writers have provided further evidence of the abject failures of the Obama-Holder group in the arena of fairness and equality of justice, which that group often preaches about. As it happens, I am one of the few folks left standing who investigated and reported on the work of the Civil Rights Division way back during the original and real Civil Rights Movement. At the time I was Chief of the Administration of Justice Section of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. To my knowledge, I recall no political prosecutions by the lawyers of the Division back then, although they may have occurred. However, my primary memory is that lawyers of all political stripes were very careful to live up to their oaths as objective officers of the court and to the ethics of the legal profession. Those ethical thoughts applied to the lawyers of the Division and also to the lawyers in Southern states who I encountered in my work on the front lines during tense civil rights confrontations. One of those ethical lawyers on the other side was Bill Waller, then the chief prosecutor in Hines County, Mississippi. He was a proud example of an ethical lawyer even though he was an elected southern official. Apparently, more than a few of the lawyers in the current Civil Rights Division under Obama and Holder could learn some lessons in legal ethics from Waller’s principled actions.

I have felt called by God for the past two years to spend time praying outside a clinic in Fort Worth, TX. I can tell you that I am sensing a growing darkness on the streets.

The pro aborts are getting bolder and a couple of weeks ago, 4 FW cruisers arrived on the scene with 6 policemen to tell us that we could not stand on the edge of the street. (There are no sidewalks and the property owner has told us that we couldn’t stand on the grass. We since found out that there is an easement and so we can stand there after all.)

For the first time since I began doing this, I realized that there is a real chance that I could be arrested for exercising my free speech right. At the same time, there is a group of college age people who are demonstrating there. They are holding sign for socialistworker.org. It is very sad that they are wasting their youth being ‘useful idiots’ for a cause that is a lie.

They also have an armed guard there to protect the ignorant going in to the clinic from our rosaries. None of us would ever do any acts of violence but I can imagine that at some point, there may be acts of violence done to us.

This administration must go! Please speak up and do all in your power to help that to happen. We must educate people!

Your post is so ARROGANT that only a Christian fanatic could have written it.
Everything you do is “good”, and everything others do is “misguided”.
You are wise, but the others are “useful idiots”. Your cause is “truth” but the cause of others is “lie”.
Above all, you arrogantly claim that you have been called to your “cause” by GOD, while the truth is that you are just like a Pavlovian dog following your childhood conditioning.

Yes, this administration must go, because they are taking our freedom away.
But the tragedy is that people like myself are forced to vote on the Democrats and their disgusting Hussein Obama, because religious Republicans want to take even more freedom away from us.
GET OFF other peoples lives, you holier than though puts!

“Your post is so ARROGANT that only a Christian fanatic could have written it.” Grandma didn’t say anything close to
“Everything [I] do is “good”, and everything others do is “misguided”. [I am] wise, but the others are “useful idiots”. [My] cause is “truth” but the cause of others is “lie”. Your only passably accurate quotation, was that Grandma felt (rather than arrogantly claimed) she was “called by God.”

I, personally, am an atheist, but I’ve much more respect for TXgrandma than for you. Nothing grandma posted gave me any indication she wants to take away anyone’s freedom. All she wants to do is persuade people that abortion is evil in a place where that persuasion might save some lives and put her life at risk. More power to her!

Perhaps she is “just like a Pavlovian dog following your childhood conditioning.” What’s your excuse viiit?

And a minor point, the correct spelling is putz, not puts, whether or not the person described is “holier than though.”

“The wicked man flees, though no one pursues him.” You are so self-conscious of your sin that you impute your own malice to anyone who dares raise the subject. Know this, though, we count every curse out of your mouth as a blessing, for Jesus said that we are blessed when the wicked persecute us.

At what point will the courts or Congress act? Consistent abuse of authority like this would get a normal prosecutor fired/disbarred. Can we not do the same with the federal lawyers? If the federal govt continuously violates people’s rights (whether the govt is Republic or democrat) is there no recourse for the people? Or will this continue until someone decides to take the law into their own hands because no one in the courts/govt will step in to stop this nonsense?

“Mary Susan Pine, a woman who for more than 20 years has engaged in peaceful sidewalk counseling for women seeking abortions in West Palm Beach”

I find Mary Susan Pine’s DISGUSTING:
“sidewalk counseling”
WOW!
What nonsense.
What would you say if some religious nut was offering “sidewalk counseling” in front of a psychiatrist’s office to the people seeking psychiatric help.

That Mary is causing huge distress to these poor already distressed women, just as she would be doing with the psychiatric patients.

Another furor from Viiit. As the judge observed, there was NO evidence showing Miss Pine had caused anyone any distress. With only the article to go on, Viiit concluded “Mary is causing huge distress to these poor already distressed women.” If that were the case, nothing stopped those women from complaining about it, either to the police or to the staff of the abortion facility.

Sidewalk counseling = a woman who has made an extremely personal decision, and is attempting to obtain a legal medical procedure, must be subject to receiving, from a self-proclaimed “counselor,” a religious tutorial on pregnancy, and the “counselor’s” opinion on creation of life, before she can obtain her medical procedure.

“What you seem to have difficulty grasping is when does a person have a right NOT to hear a religious opinion being voiced by another person & directed at them?” Ans: They merely have to walk past the protesters. The protesters are not impeding their access to the abortion mill. The protesters have the right under the Constitution to make their voices heard irregradless of whether you like it or not. It really is that simple, Steve.

“How is “Code Pink” blocking a Marine recruitment relevant to a discussion about abortion?” Ans: Merely that we don’t all have to LIKE what others are protesting. But, we do and should agree that they have the right to do so in the publics square and forum. And, the courts should not even attempt to superced that God give right.

Where do you have a “right” to not to be offended, or anyone else for that matter?

What I think is, you’re afraid of people knowing the truth about what is really going on in an abortion. No wonder you butchers are uncomfortable talking about it. And from your reaction, maybe you carry a tinge of guilt.

The article describing the case said, “The case involved Mary Susan Pine, a woman who for more than 20 years has engaged in peaceful sidewalk counseling for women seeking abortions in West Palm Beach. While engaging in this ministry, Ms. Pine was notified by police that she had violated city and state traffic laws on one particular day.” Nothing in the article leads me to believe that Miss Pine is either a self-proclaimed counselor (I agree that she counsels) or that she is a minister, even though “she engages in this ministry.” Those are just the words chosen by the article’s author.

Any woman wishing to abort her child can simply walk by and ignore Miss Pine or stop and listen. What that woman does after encountering Miss Pine is her choice. I thought Stevie wanted her free to make that choice and the subsequent choice to kill her unwanted baby.

The article describing the case said, “The case involved Mary Susan Pine, a woman who for more than 20 years has engaged in peaceful sidewalk counseling for women seeking abortions in West Palm Beach. While engaging in this ministry, Ms. Pine was notified by police that she had violated city and state traffic laws on one particular day.” Nothing in the article leads me to believe that Miss Pine is either a self-proclaimed counselor (I agree she counsels, but I doubt she proclaims herself a counselor) or that she is a minister, even though “she engages in this ministry.” Those are just the words chosen by the article’s author.

Any woman wishing to abort her child can simply walk by and ignore Miss Pine or stop and listen. What that woman does after encountering Miss Pine is her choice. I thought Stevie wanted her free to make that choice and the subsequent choice to kill the baby she doesn’t want.

#18 myth buster: “you cannot silence speech no matter how outrageous you find it.” Sorry, Myth, you’re not doing your homework. Courts have ruled in several cases that there are limits to free speech; the classic being to shout “fire” in a crowded theater.

But following your logic, does that mean that the next time I go by Planned Parenthood and an anti-abortion zealot gets in my face, I can tell them to f**k off?

Has anyone actually met with any of these Planned Parenthood people or protesters to keep abortion legal? They are the most hate filled, angry and bitter people that I’ve ever seen. And, naturally they are liberals. Frankly, the Justice Dept. is just full of the same. They need to be cleaned out like a puss filled infection. As corrupt as Holder’s minions are, no in the Dem. Party Propaganda Ministry (AKA mainstream press) will make a peep against them. Phony prosecutions, lying to Congress, supplying guns to criminals in Mexico, not allowing whites to vote, etc. It is all just a big joke. You can see what really goes on very easily. IF you are a liberal & w/ the demos, you get carte blanche. IF not, you belong in jail.

Just a thought. I wonder if it would be a good idea, as a form of protest at abortion mills, if parents took children and played with them. Perhaps seeing happy children outside a place that kills children, might make thes mothers see the positive side of raising children. I would love to take my grandchildren and have some fun. It would be very subtle.

Keaton: do you support providing access to contraceptives? Have you adopted any unwanted children? Do you contribute money to social agencies that support women with kids? Do you support continuing funding for WIC, Medicaid; and similar programs that support women with kids? Or do you see these as entitlements needing to be cut as part of balancing the federal budget?

#22 Bulgaricus: “And, naturally they are liberals.” And you are uninformed. The founder of the modern conservative movement was the late Senator Barry Goldwater. He was born & raised here in the West; a rugged individualist. His comment about abortion: “It’s not a conservative issue. It’s a matter between a woman and her doctor.”

More access to contraception? I’m really getting tired of this. Who the hell can’t get contraception? Who is this mythical person?

And I’m really getting tired of it because of the idea that if I don’t like abortions I should be pushing for more contraception. Fact is: more contraception = more abortions.

A 2009 study by the journal Contraception found, in a 10-year study of women in Spain, that as overall contraceptive use increased from around 49 percent to 80 percent, the elective abortion rate more than doubled.

I clicked on your link to Catholic Vote and further reviewed the citations. You cite results in Spain. Other countries show a decline in abortions. In other words, the research appears to be mixed & non-conclusive. They also cite a university professor, name of New, as an authority. He’s affiliated with a conservative think tank called the Witherspoon Institute; a proponent of heterosexual marriage and opponent of same-sex marriage. Seems to me that he comes to the discussion with a built in bias.

I support abstinance until marriage. I have raised 2 girls that are not my children. I did not adopt formally, but they call me dad. I am the only dad they ever had. I coach kids in sport. Have for 15 years. Lots of kids ,I was the only father they had. I still am. They know I have their back, because I told them I did. I cheer them in life. They tell me their wins and losses in life. They know I would be disappointed in them if they were promiscuous , got pregnant ,and killed the kid. I taught them to know right from wrong. Killing a child for your convenience is wrong. Period. I am proud of all of them. They know that I would I would be disgusted with them if they were to ever shed innocent blood ,for convenience. They would rightly scorn the SteveB/colorado’s. Coitus welfare indeed.

Keaton: I commend you for not just “talking the talk,” but also “walking the walk.” Most anti-abortion advocates I’ve encountered & known do little, if anything, along the lines of what you have accomplished.

As for my and those like me “being scorned,” my position remains the same. Citizens should have the right to determine for themselves their own family planning and reproduction matters without having those decisions dictated to them by big government and/or big religion.

“Citizens should have the right to determine for themselves their own family planning and reproduction matters without having those decisions dictated to them by big government and/or big religion.”

You’re totally right. People are and should be totally free to determine their own family planning. Including:

*men forcing women they’ve impregnated to have abortions because they don’t want to pay child support. I mean hey, they’re planning their family, right? Can’t be forced to carry that burden, right?

*men simply declining to acknowledge or pay support for children conceived when the woman lied about being on birth control. I mean hey, they’re planning their family, right? Can’t be forced to carry that burden, right?

*parents smothering their six month olds because they’re keeping them up at night and harming parental health. I mean hey, they’re planning their family, right? Can’t be forced to carry that burden, right?

*mothers aborting unborn children of the wrong gender. I mean hey, they’re planning their family, right? Can’t be forced to carry that burden, right?

*adult children accidentally unplugging the respirators of their elderly dependent parents they’re tired of caring for. I mean hey, they’re planning their family, right? Can’t be forced to carry that burden, right?

not to be an ass…..I drive by a guy dressed up like a sponge, selling car-washes. I walk by people offering to sell me newspapers, to get into the grocery store. when I lived downtown, I got to hear five different nutjobs talking about the apocalypse. It’s not like people aren’t capable of walking by talking other people.

Robert Moses and some other futurist architect are the ones who envisioned cities without pedestrians, without uncontrolled human interactions. Jane Jacobs might be an uneven social critic, but she did get- people talk to people. that’s what happens in cities. that’s what makes them valuable. That’s what makes them Other than giant suburbs. We are currently tearing down most of the buildings that the sixties futurist designed b/c they are ugly, anti- human, uncomfortable, shoddily built, and so on and so forth. It’s a fair objective correlative, don’t you think?

And, as a civil rights, social protest- pro-life activists are the single least violent movement in American history. The guys protecting trees have a higher kill count than pro-life activists. I’m not even Catholic, I’m not active in any sense, and I know that.

One unhinged guy gunning someone down in the narthex is still, what 35 short of the UT tower sniper. And, frankly, seems to me about on the level of the old testament, where the old priests two corrupt sons got killed in front of the altar. That man had issues, even from what I’ve read from his supporters, and I don’t know why his pastor hadn’t taken him to task about them. We have to get up in church, and pray for him, corporately, and it’s the one day a year I think, we’ve got to change denominations. I don’t know how, but praying for abortionists who slaughter viable infants strikes me as one of the easier not-Christian calls.

and that bugs me- I think- you know, we allow abortion. Fine. We allow contraception. Fine. It’s a series of consequential choices, and we ought to be talking about it even more than we do, with all sorts of shadings. Getting married to the right guy is a big deal- we have a billion dollar publishing industry devoted to that: Romance. Guys getting Mr Happy happy have porn. There are five different woodworking magazines, six or so lad magazines, five women’s fitness mags.Kids have learning to read books. Where is the wit and style and humor and gloss devoted to choosing pregnancy? I can count, what- Knocked Up, and Juno. and that’s it. Two movies.

If I may chime in: I used to belong to what I’m guessing is the same denomination as Ari and as Dr. Tiller–the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America–and finding out about the ELCA’s quiet support of abortion (which many of the pewsitters have zero clue about) was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m on my way into the Catholic church; just waiting patiently for my husband to see the light as well and enroll with me in RCIA.

I hope to be a member of the Tiber Swim Team 2013. Ari, there’s plenty of room for you too!